Evidence
by bj
Summary: Victim 2: Abbey. We are not victims if there is no proof.


Title: Evidence  
Author: bjg  
Category: Drama, Angst lite, pre-WW.  
Series: Victims 2/7.  
Rating: PG for language.  
Disclaimer: The West Wing and all related materials do not belong to me. Sorry to ruin your plans for financial freedom.  
Note: Remember this series? Me neither. Second to last installment. This story expands on the Abbey paragraph in the Ensemble fic Victims. It's not necessary to read it first, but you may want to. As well, the Victims stories will not be presented in order of 1-7. They're non-linear, numbered according to their place in the original story.   
Archive: At my site.  
Feedback: Is all sorts of neat. allcanadiangirl@lycos.com and/or review.  
Summary: Victim 2: Abbey. We are not victims if there is no proof.  
  
  
Evidence  
by bjg  
  
  
The sky is flat, like a photograph in the wrong light. The sky is blue outside the bedroom window, the clouds are burnt white velvet on blue silk.   
  
It's cold for October, though not for New Hampshire, and your face feels like stone—what it must look like—and your fingers have lost all memory as you read the questions carefully, as you listen to him getting ready in the next room.  
  
The pen is heavy in your hand. It's his pen. The butt of it was shining gold in the exposed breast pocket of his coat, and you just remembered the form. When she gave it to you a month ago, you took one look at the questions and told yourself you forgot about it, but she says that it has to be in next week or she'll fill it out herself, and while such delegation is appealing, you have a feeling it's a sin to let your daughter commit fraud for you—knowingly or not.  
  
With all the political bullshit going on, you didn't know when you'd get another chance to do it away from him, so you pulled it out of your attaché, and the pen slipped out of his pocket and into your fingers so silently, so easily. How does it know you need that balanced weight, like the comfort of his smile?  
  
He clings to you—unconsciously, you know—because he knows he's in too deep this time, he knows he got righteous without right this time. Of course, it's not bad politics for him to have a beautiful, intelligent, dutiful wife, either.  
  
You hear him practicing hellos in the bathroom. In a moment he'll come out with a towel around his shoulders, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and tell you to get moving. You'll give him a look as you slide the folded, completed form back into your case, and tell him you've been ready since eight o'clock, jackass, and it's nine already. He'll think you're mad about not being home for Annie's band concert. It's all right for him to think that.  
  
You leave glaring blanks in the form. The spaces glare whitely at you and you close your eyes as his razor taps against the porcelain sink twice and he asks after some senator's twins.  
  
It's only omission. The blanks are not yes or no. They are implicitly voluntary, and you don't need the evidence following Zoey around for the next four years.  
  
He clears his throat and greets the speaker for the sixth time. You've never left blanks before. You've never needed to. You tell yourself, as you fill in date of birth, social insurance number, tick this, tick that, circle one of three, that it doesn't matter, that these forms are unnecessary bureaucratic bullshit, and bordering on the unconstitutional.  
  
The spaces seem to fill the whole page, you've used very little ink, and the blanks stare at you reproachfully, disbelievingly. You can hardly believe it yourself.  
  
You can't believe you're lying for him without even needing to be asked.  
  
On the other hand, it makes perfect sense.  
  
Why would he have to ask you? You know him so well. Isn't that the kind of wife he needs now? One who will do these things for him without burdening his snowy countenance?  
  
It's a form, and it needs signing.  
  
You slowly draw lines to make the date.  
  
This is, despite the cliché, despite the awful irony, the moment of truth.  
  
You rest the heel of your hand on the edge of the occasional table, tracing the last blank with the gold cap of the pen. You tell yourself you're doing this for him, and that he is reason enough.  
  
The shaft is heavy against your middle finger. Remember the writer's callus he used to have? The way it would catch in you hair after a hard day, or bump reassuringly through your knuckles as your two hands wove together?  
  
The weighted glide of the ball over the paper, an eighth of an inch above the line, the ink is such fine ink, it doesn't bleed as you inject your reputation into a lie. Your name is crisp, minted, nearly flat from stress, and you have a brief, horrible, absurd thought.  
  
Should you wipe your prints from the pen?  
  
  
  
We are not victims if there is no proof.  
  
  
End. 


End file.
